Back in the early 2010’s the popular trend of sharing short form videos on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter was booming.
Attention spans were shortening and these six second looping videos were all the rage. The platform behind these six second videos? Vine.
Considering the popularity of the platform, it came as a massive shock to the online world when Twitter, who had since acquired Vine, announced in 2016 that they were going to disable all new uploads to the platform.
While users could still access the historical database of uploads for another year, the Vine era was over.
As mentioned, Vine was incredibly popular so it was inevitable that replacements were going to be launched.
In this article, we are going to look at the best apps out there which offer a similar service to Vine and tell you a little bit about each one. Let’s get started.
Apps like Vine – The top three
TikTok
Without a doubt, the most popular video-based social media platform to have been launched since Vine disappeared off the face the earth is TikTok.
Though there are a few TikTok competitors like Triller, it’s by far the most popular option for the short video format.
While TikTok allows videos uploaded to their platform to be much longer than what was allowed on Vine, the videos found on the app are typically less than a minute in length despite there now being a relatively large ten minute limit on all uploads.
The beauty of TikTok revolves around its algorithm, or what users on the app will know as the ‘for you page’.
TikTok gathers an idea of what content you like based on what you have liked, commented on, or shared in the past. In fact, they even take into consideration how long users stay on particular videos for.
For example, if you are seen to be interacting with videos relating to Star Wars, then your ‘for you page’ will start showing you Star Wars videos more regularly.
This means that there is actually no need to ‘follow’ your favourite accounts, because the app will figure out your favourite accounts, and those similar, for you.
Another cool feature of TikTok is that it allows users to go ‘live’ on the app, in a similar way to how users can on Instagram.
This adds a new dimension to the app that Vine never had, and this lack of evolution is potentially what resulted in Vine’s success being so short lived.
It will be interesting to see how TikTok continues to evolve in the coming years as it bids to keep alive its soaring popularity.
Huddles
It’s only fair that we give Huddles a mention here as it was created by Dom Hofmann, who was actually a co-founder of the original Vine.
And like Vine, Huddles is a short form video app made for sharing short videos that are less than 16 seconds long.
Though it’s a popular app in its own right, it’s not taken off like Vine did. This may be because the app was acquired and then merged into another – it was originally called Byte, and then Clash, but now it’s called Huddles. By the time this article is published, it’ll probably be called something else.
Anyway, the app itself is pretty solid for video loops and publishing new videos, and it would make a great alternative to Vine. But like any social media, it’s only as popular as its influencers, and Huddles hasn’t taken off quite yet.
Giphy
If you are looking for short, snappy and humorous video clips then Giphy is the place for you.
Historically, the main difference between Giphy and Vine is the fact that Vine’s videos included Audio, while Giphy’s videos didn’t, typically using subtitled text on videos where necessary.
However, in recent times the app has started to include compatibility which allows audio within their clips, making it even more similar to Vine in the process.
While everyone is able to use Giphy without having to sign up to an account, it is beneficial to get an account because it allows users to create their own GIFs, save their favourites and make collections.
Once you’re in the app, whether anonymously or on your registered account, you are free to browse the app and watch all of the short video clips (otherwise known as GIFs) stored on there.
Typically, these GIFs are used on social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram, or within messaging apps. They are often used to create humour or to make a certain point.
In order to search for a video clip/GIF within the app, you are best off hitting the search icon on the bottom menu bar and searching for the video theme that you’re looking for.
Each clip on the app is saved with various tags all relating to what the video is about so by using the search function you are bound to find something useful to you.
Alternatively, you can just flick through the app’s home screen which contains various categories, including ‘trending’, ‘stories’, ‘stickers’ and so on.
While this functionality won’t be much use to you if you have downloaded the app in order to find something specific, it can provide you with some light-hearted, comedic relief to an otherwise boring afternoon.
Coub
Coub is the final platform that we’d like to discuss and the one that is most like a complete replica of Vine.
Coub is all about taking existing videos, trimming them to a maximum length of ten seconds, adding in after effects such as music to overlay the video, and setting them to loop over and over again. So, yeah, it’s basically Vine but with four seconds extra length available to you.
The platform isn’t only an editing software like we’ve just described, but also a place where you can access other people’s trimmed videos and share them across social media platforms if you particularly enjoy them.
To use Coub, users don’t need to have an account meaning you are free to browse the app and save videos, however, you will need to sign up in order to create your own.
To complete the creation process, users need to select the ‘create’ button on the website’s home screen.
From there, you will then need to either paste a video link from elsewhere on the internet like YouTube or upload a video from your device.
Once selected, you will then have to use the trimming tool to select the section of the video which you would like to keep.
After that, you can select whether you want the video to loop or not, add in music and add in other sounds. Hit save and then your video will be ready to share across the internet.
Conclusion
Considering Vine was discontinued while being a popular platform, it is no surprise that there are now many strong alternatives out there.
The four mentioned in this article are all unique in their own way and well worth a download in their own right. In fact, you could download all four and enjoy different experiences across all of them.
